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The capacity of the Irish political world to become obsessed with trivialities, while big issues which will have a vital bearing on the future of the country are virtually ignored, has been illustrated once more by the seemingly endless controversy over Katherine Zappone’s ill-fated United Nations appointment.
Last year it was the overblown Golfgate controversy which, among other things, cost the country it’s most influential European commissioner in decades. This summer the fallout from Zappone’s antics has dominated the news, distracted from far more important issues and damaged a number of political reputations.
That the failed appointment of a former minister to a minor lobbying role at the UN should have generated such a political storm, and be deemed worthy of endless media coverage for more than six weeks, is a commentary on the current state of public debate in Ireland.
Of course it was silly of Simon Coveney to offer Zappone a lobbying role at the UN and even more foolish not to inform Micheál Martin of the proposed appointment.
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The disproportionate attention it has received is the most striking feature of the controversy
It was the failure to inform the Taoiseach that has left the Minister for Foreign Affairs explaining and re-explaining his contacts with Zappone since last March. The old political adage “when you’re explaining you’re losing” has never been more apt.
When placed against Coveney’s performance on really important issues like Brexit, the slip-up over Zappone should only be a blip in his political career but, as Albert Reynolds famously said, it’s the little things in politics that trip you up. The other side of that truism is that the big things in Irish politics don’t seem to count for nearly as much as the little ones until the country hits the rocks.
In one sense the storm around Coveney and Leo Varadkar over their handling of the Zappone appointment is poetic justice, given the role that both of them played in forcing Phil Hogan out of the critically important Trade portfolio in the European Commission last summer. However, just as with the golf debacle, the disproportionate attention it has received is the most striking feature of the controversy.
The real mystery is why Coveney went out of his way to appoint Zappone. The very least he should have done in response to her lobbying for the position was to insist on a transparent process. Looking at it in a crude political sense it is not as if the current Government, or the previous one for that matter, owed her anything. That is just one of the baffling aspects of the affair for Fine Gael TDs.
There are worrying echoes of the air of unreality that was a feature of Irish politics ... leading up to the financial crash
What has really infuriated them is the way this utterly unnecessary controversy has tarnished the reputations of the party leader and his most obvious successor. If Coveney felt it necessary to appoint a politician as the Irish envoy for human rights there were plenty of suitable candidates from any of the three Coalition parties with greater international recognition.
Instead, for whatever reason, Coveney decided to appoint Zappone and dropped himself and his Government into an unholy mess. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald is now threatening a Dáil motion of no confidence in the Minister. If the past is any guide this might actually serve to draw a line under the controversy by forcing the Coalition parties to face down their critics and focus public attention on the real business of government.
As well as dealing with ongoing important issues like housing, health and the Northern Ireland protocol which pose day-to-day challenges, the most pressing longer term issue facing the entire political system is how the Government’s spending plans for the years ahead are to be funded.
Only last week Governor of the Irish Central Bank Gabriel Makhlouf warned that plans for a sequence of massive budget deficits between now and 2025 pose a serious risk to the public finances. Nobody in the Dáil appears to have paid the slightest interest in the warning. Instead of seeking to rein in spending, or increase taxes to pay for it, politicians on all sides are demanding ever more spending with no suggestions of how it is to be funded.
The Irish political system has walked itself into two enormous self inflicted recessions since the late 1970s. The first led to the lost decade of the 1980s and the second the financial crisis of 2008/2010 and all the pain that followed. Unless we are very careful we could be back to another financial collapse in the not too distant future.
British prime minister Boris Johnson, widely regarded in Ireland as an incompetent figure of fun, has been embroiled in a serious controversy over the past week for breaking an election pledge not to increase tax. He decided to do it anyway in order to pay for the escalating cost of health and social care in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
By contrast the Irish political world, instead of facing up to similar challenges here, was absorbed in analysing the minute detail of a failed appointment to a minor lobbying role at the UN. There are worrying echoes of the air of unreality that was a feature of Irish politics in the years leading up to the financial crash.